Tag: over thinking

Stepping up is bravery

Posted on by philipdodson

We think that it is someone else, them, others, people, they are doing it…a person to blame or something else to analyse, another excuse to hide.

Others are not doing anything to us, we are doing it all to ourselves by how we choose to react to others, and others are behaving in response to what we send out.

If we change what we send out and how we react, then we can change the world to whatever we want it to be.

We manifest the reality of our lives now, by what we choose. The only common factor in our entire life is ourselves and the choices we make, then the actions we create and the outcomes we get. It’s all ours to choose and own.

If we choose to not respect ourselves and our boundaries, then others will not respect us. If we choose to react to others’ anger with anger, we will receive more anger and so on.

It is our choice and ours alone, and as Eckhart Tolle brilliantly says ‘the answer to every question in life is now’. This present moment is all that matters as that is where real life exists and where we can change anything we want to change. Endless analysis of the past or projection into the future is futile. Change happens from within us now and no one else has anything to do with it unless we choose to allow it.

We are not here to fix others or to be fixed by them. We can only be who we are right now and we can only change that right now. The answer isn’t in the past. Unless we look there and identify with, and cling to, the past versions of us and stories we made up in our minds about who we thought we were then.

We are what we are now, and if we believe that we want something different, then change it now. What we want to be now is no one else’s business and they have no right to question or own our journey, choices or stories.

If we act always from our hearts and not our minds, then we will always choose love as the guide and not the past, stories, fears, or the choices of others about who we should be.

We are only what others say or believe we are if we choose to accept and believe that too. It isn’t about right or wrong it is about what we feel we are that matters.

We never need to seek permission, or approval or have to justify ourselves to anyone. Our journey is ours and instead of spending a lifetime analysing it, searching for it, thinking about it, hiding from it, looking in books, watching videos or attending courses, we could choose to just be what we want to be right now. We could choose to step up onto the stage and live our lives or we can choose to stay in the shadow looking for it when it is already here. We do not have life, well we do in our mind and its stories, we are life…now.

Sure we will fuck it up, fall over, fail and end up on the floor, but when we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down, take the learning and go again, we will experience real life, we will be alive in this moment, with no one to blame as there is no blame and we will be alive. The views of those in the cheap seats, chucking their shame, judgement, opinions and righteousness can be ignored as they are not in the ring ‘daring greatly’ as Brene Brown would say.

Stepping up is bravery and hard, but it is the only way to be alive.

Bravery is living life not analysing it, thinking about it or seeking others’ views of it. It is not about reading books, attending courses or telling others what you think about them. It is living in this moment and being prepared to fail and go again no matter what.

Am I stepping up? That’s all I can ask myself. It’s not my place to judge others, it is my place to be brave enough to do it for myself.

Yahtzee and an aha! moment that changes everything

Posted on by philipdodson

As a family, we love playing Yahtzee, which for those who are not familiar with it, it is a simple dice game with 5 dice, you get 3 rolls to achieve certain set things like as many 1’s, 2’s, 3’s, 4’s, 5’s and 6’s as you can, 3 of a kind, 4 of a kind, a full house (3 of one number and 2 of another), a high and low straight (1,2,3,4 and 5 or 2,3,4,5 and 6), and Yahtzee the ultimate score with 50 points is 5 of the same number and then there is a ‘chance’ where if you mess up aiming to get one of the set things you can just add the total of the dice at the end of your 3 rolls.

We’ve been playing it almost every day recently and we all love it.

I had an ‘aha’ moment yesterday after playing it. I noticed that in games, especially Yahtzee but also most other games, I am very decisive and I instinctively know what I want to do. I do not hesitate when playing Yahtzee…I might roll as my first role of the 5 dice a 6,5,3,2 and 2. I immediately know to go for my low straight 2,3,4,5 or 3,4,5,6 or I sense to go for Yahtzee with 2’s I only need 3 more 2’s from another 2 rolls. I just immediately do what I feel. Now, of course, I do not always get it right, but I say ‘no worries, it’s just a game, I get another turn in a minute and it’s always OK because I can play another game’.

I am good at playing games as I risk everything and as I said it does not always work, but it works more often than not, I am confident and I believe I am good at it and therefore, I am and I win quite often.

As I laid in bed thinking about this, I realised that life is a game of Yahtzee. Every moment we get to start a new game if we choose, it doesn’t matter what I rolled last time, just go again and again. Follow your instinct, your feeling, the intuition from your soul and do it. Do not fear what dice to roll in life, just roll them and see what comes up. If the dice aren’t what you want roll again. We can always start again from any situation and the more we roll the better we get at knowing what works and doesn’t.

What happens in life is I think, I hesitate, I analyse, I think about all the options and the what ifs. Instead, I can use my intuition from my soul and just roll. I can change on the next roll if the outcome doesn’t give me the right dice and then go again. I can start a new game and learn from the choices I made last time, I can enjoy the rolling of the dice too, as I am not fearful of the outcome.

I am now going to play Yahtzee every day in my life. Of course, it will, like any game, take practice and the belief that you can do it, but that is what life is, a fun game to be played and to learn as we play. Of course, I’ll make bad choices, and need to start a new game as I will run out of rolls for that game. It will be a challenge because I’ll have to overcome my mind and I’ll have to deal with my fears.

Mistakes are only mistakes if we do not learn from them, and even then, we have a lifetime to eventually get the lesson and apply it and maybe we won’t learn, but hey that’s OK too.

Play Yahtzee…it’s great fun and it could change your life.